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President issues decree ratifying Kyoto protocol

ABU DHABI — The President, His Highness Shaikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, has issued a federal decree on the ratification of the Kyoto protocol to the United Nations framework convention on climate change.

Sources at the Ministry of Energy said that the UAE will put on the protocol’s ratification document within days.

The Kyoto protocol, which consists of 28 articles, including definition of terms used in the protocol, policies, measures and commitments that member countries must respect strictly in terms of definition of emissions in order to achieve sustainable development, as well as commitments to measures to limit and/or reduce emissions of greenhouse gases not controlled by the Montreal protocol in the transport sector.

The protocol also consists of articles and clauses that deal with the Kyoto protocol’s mechanisms, including the mechanism of clean development, trade mechanism in emission and common implementation mechanism.

The sources said that by ratifying the protocol, the UAE would be protecting its rights that the protocol, which becomes effective from next month, guarantees for its members, adding that the UAE’s ratification of the protocol was also within the country’s commitment to the recommendations of the Gulf Cooperation Council, GCC, regarding this issue.

They said the implementation of the protocol may have some effect on oil as a commodity in terms of oil production, marketing and use, which, in some years to come, may negatively affect the country’s oil revenue, adding that studies had proven that material, social, health and environmental losses that the uae may incur as a result of this ratification will be well over $40 billion from 2010 to 2030.